6/1/24 - Weekend Listening from Intercontinental Exchange

As springtime moves into full flower, against a backdrop of storm clouds elsewhere, I’m always on the lookout for ‘green shoots.’

Drawn from ICE ’s vast trove of data from across the U.S. mortgage ecosystem, we recently issued a news release on mortgage performance noting “Continued Improvement in April Leads to Fewest Serious Delinquencies in 18+ Years.”

Writing in The Wall Street Journal this week, correspondent Nicole Friedman tapped into ICE’s data to highlight another green shoot for homebuyers, at least in Texas and Florida, where prices have shown some declines. “Robust home-building activity in recent years has helped boost the number of homes for sale,” Friedman concluded.

Notwithstanding that prices for single family existing homes rose in 93% of U.S. metro areas during the first quarter, Friedman notes in her piece that Texas and Florida have accounted for more than a quarter of all single-family residential building permits every year from 2019 to 2023, according to Census Bureau data.

This should be welcome news for Daniella Levine Cava , the Mayor of Miami-Dade County .

Miami-Dade is Florida’s most populous county, with 2,763,366 residents spread across 1,946 square miles of oceanfront and inland property. “Mayor Daniella,” as she likes to be called, balances a population density of 1,455 people per square mile living in 34 separate cities. Every day, her team contends with the challenges of climate change, environmental preservation, and providing adequate transportation infrastructure and available housing for a booming area increasingly known as “Wall Street South.”

As Mayor Daniella told me on this week’s episode of Inside the ICE House, “The movement of people from other places to live our lifestyle, live our paradise has led to dramatic increases in housing costs. And while we know housing is a national crisis, for us, it's even more so.” She added: “We are building at the clip of about 10,000 new, affordable and workforce units annually.”

For those still planning a move to paradise, this week’s news offers green shoots that Mayor Daniella hopes will grow steadily. Our conversation with Madam Mayor is worth a listen on this beautiful spring weekend.

The view from South Florida:

• Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava Lays the Groundwork for Wall Street South Everyone, it seems, is headed to the 305. The booming popularity of South Florida proves to be a ‘good problem’ for an elected leader. Leading Miami-Dade County’s burgeoning community and enhancing its reputation as “Wall Street South,” is Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. She goes Inside the ICE House to discuss the county’s culture of innovation, flourishing economy, and how her administration is leading the charge, identifying problems, and spearheading solutions, from transportation to climate change.

If you’re on a smart phone, all of our Inside the ICE House podcast episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts, including the Apple Podcast App, Spotify, and Stitcher, and other audio platforms. Feel free to reach out to me with any feedback about our show, or suggest any guests for future episodes.